How DMOs can partner with Rezgo
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Loading ...At the Online Revealed Conference in Calgary in May, I had an opportunity to meet with many marketing and communications managers and directors from many Destination marketing organizations (DMOs) from across Canada. I had a chance to show, many for the first time, Rezgo in action and talk about the philosophy behind the system and what it can do for DMOs. Many of the people I spoke to expressed their needs from a technology standpoint. Here is a brief run down of some of the priorities that were expressed to me:
1. Most DMOs (but not all) are not interested in being reservation providers. They want to be able to market products that are relevant to their destinations but do not want to manage call centres or generate revenue through agent type relationships.
Rezgo is specifically designed to allow online booking through a DMO website but makes the supplier responsible for the payment processing and fulfillment of the service. When a customer books a tour or activity on a DMO website, the booking goes directly to the Rezgo member. The customer is told online that they are making the booking directly with the supplier and that they should contact the supplier if there are any issues. The DMO is this relationship can decide what suppliers they want to market and they can negotiate a fee or commission appropriate for each supplier.
2. DMOs are not technology companies and do not have the technological infrastructure or capabilities to be system providers for suppliers or partners. At the same time, many DMOs have taken on the unenviable role of being technology providers because there are few technologies that provide the kind of functionality that many of them need.
Rezgo provides DMOs with a great way to engage with suppliers and to provide value for their marketing dollars. The goal of the system is to allow DMOs to focus on marketing their destinations, bringing people to their websites, and promoting local products and services. Because Rezgo is already built out and is fully functional, the costs of integrating the solution into an existing technological infrastructure are minimal, not to mention the development costs are next to zero.
3. Most DMOs are focused on marketing and are looking for ways to account for their marketing efforts. In most cases, the tools do not yet exist for DMOs to be able to tell just how effective their marketing efforts actually are.
The Rezgo Distribution System is already built to support tracking of bookings. Instead of a DMO linking a visitor off to a supplier website and not being able to track whether or not a booking is made, they can keep the visitor on the site and drive them to the booking process. In this way, the DMO can better track how a visitor is navigating through the site and whether or not they are booking. The DMO can then report based on actual sales driven through the system as opposed to the number of link outs to supplier websites.
One might argue that this model is not beneficial to the individual supplier because the DMOs generally have much larger marketing budgets, but it does make the DMO accountable for their marketing efforts in a way that have not been in the past. The DMO in this case acts as a referral partner but uses their brand equity to promote trust and increase the credibility of the supplier, regardless of the quality of the supplier’s website. I would argue that a model such as this only enhances a supplier’s offerings and in some cases may provide them with much needed exposure, credibility, and cache.
There is no cost for partnering with Rezgo, so if your DMO is interested in engaging your local tour and activity suppliers to provide their amazing product online, then please contact us. I would be happy to talk to you about how we might work together to promote your destination to the World.
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